When They're Yours

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I used to babysit. It wasn‘t my thing. The kids smelled like playground, their hands were grubby, they wanted me to be nice...I wasn't into it. I used to change the clocks and announce "Time for bed!" an hour or so earlier than I was supposed to. Sorry, kids. Maybe your sitter next weekend won‘t suck as much as I do. I just wanted them to go to sleep so I could talk on the phone with my friends and go through their parents' stuff.

When I would get home, I would complain to my mom that babysitting blows and kids are gross but she would always say the same thing: "It's different when they're yours."

I believed my mom because she is my mom. I believed her until one of my friends tripped me up many, many years later.

My girlfriend, Segal, is the one who screwed me up. She told me that there is nothing better than picking a giant boogie out of her kid’s nose. I disagree. Lots of things are better. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that most everything is better. When I had to go into Sweet Pea's nose for the first time (she was around a year old) I did not have a good time. And if that wasn’t enough, I then got scared that maybe I was wrong about the stuff I‘d been telling everyone “...You can love an adopted kid as much as a bio kid...blah blah blah...adoption rules, it’s the best…blah blah…who cares if the kid doesn't look like you--go adopt a kid right now, blah blah."

As I stood amongst the mucus, I thought about what my mom had said so many years ago and I thought about what Segal had said about her kid’s boogers being so great, and I felt a little faint. 

Is the love we feel for an adopted kid different than the love we feel for a bio kid?

Could I have been wrong? Maybe bio kids have better boogers? If Sweet Pea were my bio kid, maybe I wouldn't have been as grossed out by her boogers?

I was a little freaked. If Segal wasn’t grossed out by her kid’s boogers, why was I grossed out by mine? What did I get myself into? Sweet Pea didn’t come with a receipt, just boogers. Thanks a lot, Segal. Booger lover.

It is now three years later and I have another daughter, Lovey (a bio daughter), and I can confirm, without hesitation, that bio boogs and adopted boogs are equally disgusting. Boogers just aren't my thing.

All kids are pretty disgusting, but it’s always less disgusting when it’s your own kid. Your kid’s disgusting isn’t as bad as that kid‘s disgusting--your kid is yours. Raising kids (bio or adopted, I don’t care) can be yucky and it can be annoying. It’s not like the boogers and the whining and the yuckiness aren’t going to bug you just because it’s coming from your own kid--it will, it’s just not going to bug you as much. The kid who’s playing at your house, the one who is doing the same exact annoying stuff as your kid, that kid is the one who is bugging the crap out of you.

As INSANE as it makes me when Lovey is all whiney and yucky about something only she understands, or Sweet Pea is sitting at the table, impatiently demanding “Water, please!“ it still doesn’t stop me from chasing them around the house after dinner, kissing them and trying to grab their tushies. As grossed out as I am by their boogers or how I sometimes want to say: “OK, I heard you!“ when their coughing is relentless and incessant, I still find myself overwhelmed by how much I love them, and some nights I wish I could keep them up for one more hour.

But if they’re at your house, noses running a mucus marathon and whiney voices hitting the one working nerve you have left--you might not find them to be quite as endearing. And that’s totally understandable, because they're not yours.